


when you and i were forever wild

by dorothymcshane



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4423382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothymcshane/pseuds/dorothymcshane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara’s a rock star, the Doctor’s an artist. They’re young, they’re beautiful, and there’s always a party to go to.</p>
<p>(It's the oldest story in the universe. Boy and girl fall in love, get separated by events. Since then they've been yearning for each other across time and space, across dimensions.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you and i were forever wild

**July 2010**

_lorde – glory and gore_

 

It should be Clara’s graduation night, but instead she’s standing on a scene, singing about breaking hearts, seducing the entire audience with crooked smiles and very deliberate moves with her hips. She’s a star, burning too brightly for anyone to touch her even with their fingertips, blinding everyone who dares to look directly at her. When the last tones of the encore have echoed out, she closes her eyes and allows herself to drown in the applause.

   Behind the scene, she shares a bottle of red wine with her band mates, a cigarette tucked between her fingers, and soon she’s drunk on the wine and the feeling of being eighteen years old and feeling like anything’s possible.

   It’s dark outside, stars scattered over the sky, but the air’s still warm against Clara’s arms as they cross the parking lot. There’s a party, somewhere, and they’re invited. In the car, Clara ends up in Danny’s lap, kissing him almost nonchalantly. He’s their bassist, and he adores her. She can see it in his eyes.

   The party takes place in an art gallery in one of the city’s skyscrapers. Clara knows most of the people there. She’s gotten used to mingling with people whose faces adorn tabloids. She’s skinny dipped with Melanie Bush, snorted coke with Rose Tyler, and gotten photographed kissing Fitz Kreiner. She’s a “celebrity”, with endless parties to go to and a fabulous team of publicists who spread slight untruths about the story of her life in order to make as many people as possible fall in love with her.

   When Amy, the drummer, introduces her to John, she’s slightly unstable on her feet, holding a glass of vodka.

   “He’s the artist,” Amy tells her, her eyes glowing.

   Clara wonders if she should know what the fuck that means, but he’s attractive and bound to be someone worth knowing if he’s made his way to the party, so she doesn’t care enough to ask. Two hours later, Clara’s lying in a sofa with her head in his lap, telling him about the time when she and Amy broke into what they thought was Vislor Turlough’s house, only to find out that he actually lived next door. Four hours later, he’s got his head between her legs, and she’s tangling her fingers into his dark blonde curls, breathless little sounds falling from her lips.

 

 

**February 2011**

_florence + the machine – bedroom hymns_

“You’re ruining my makeup,” she tells him in between her giggles, making a half-hearted attempt at buttoning his wrinkled shirt. “You don’t want me to look like I’ve just been fucked senseless when I win a Grammy, do you?”

   He grins. “Well, you’re dangerously attractive in that dress.”

   “I look better in lingerie,” she says, reaching for her bottle of red wine to take a sip from it. “Fuck, I can’t wait to get this night over with.”

   “Being nominated for a Grammy for album of the year, every girl’s worst nightmare.”

   “I hate award shows.”

   “It’s going to be fine,” John promises her, tilting her head up so that she’s forced to meet his gaze, and she bites her lip, but nods.

   Her band wins the award. They all hug each other, the cameras catching their smiles, and then Clara thanks a list of people including “a person who didn’t influence this album, but has inspired most of our next one”.

   After the show, everyone wants to speak to Clara, and she tells the journalists about the next album and repeats how excited she is about winning the award until the words lose their meaning. Amy, Rory and Danny are heading to the house of some huge rock star for the afterparty, and Clara parts ways with them after they’ve exchanged cheek kisses, promising them that she’ll see them there later.

   “So, you survived,” John greets her when she finds him in the corridors of the building. She doesn’t reply, she just presses him up against one of the walls, reaching up on her tiptoes to let her lips meet his. There’s a desperation to the kiss, as if the universe is collapsing around them, as if all of the stars are falling from the sky, and they’re at the centre of the storm.

   “Barely,” she tells him, her voice slightly breathless. “You up for the afterparty?”

   “I’ve got a better idea,” he tells her.

   She raises an eyebrow.

   “Trust me.”

   “One condition,” she says, burying her face against his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of him. “It has to be amazing.”

 

 

**August 2011**

_sia – chandelier_

“So, finally we get to meet the boyfriend,” Linda says, shaking John’s hand.

   “He’s not my boyfriend,” Clara says, “and you can’t be here.”

   “I’d started thinking she didn’t even have parents,” John says, seemingly oblivious to Clara’s uneasiness. “She never talks about you.”

   “Oh, I’m just her stepmother. That’s her dad, over there, admiring your paintings.”

   “Please,” Clara says, “I don’t want to have to cause a scene.”

   Linda turns around to face her. “You can’t ignore us for the rest of your life.”

   “You told me to, remember?” Clara says. “When I dropped out of school, you told me not to think that you’d be there for me anymore.”

   “Clara, you don’t need to do this right now.”

   A corner of Clara’s mouth curves upwards, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Go fuck yourself.”

   “Your dad’s dying,” Linda blurts out, and something inside Clara breaks, but she refuses to let Linda see the darkness in her eyes, she refuses to waver.

   “Doesn’t matter,” she tells her, grabbing John’s hand, leading him through the gallery.

   “I assume you don’t want me to ask you any questions about what just happened,” he says.

   Clara reaches for a glass of champagne from a silver tray a server is holding, emptying it in a single gulp before she opens her mouth again. “Correct.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “Yeah,” she finally says after several seconds of silence. “Me, too.”

 

 

**December 2011**

_slow club – christmas tv_

It’s Christmas day and Clara’s sitting in John’s lap in the hot tub in Amy’s garden, sipping on a glass of eggnog while a Christmas-themed playlist is playing in the background.

   “Come on,” Danny shouts from the balcony, “it’s time for the Christmas special of Doctor Who.”

   “Can’t miss that, can we?” Amy says with a laugh, and soon, the garden’s empty except for Clara and John and all the fairy lights in the snow-covered bushes. Clara’s sucking on John’s fingertips, and it’s so cold that their breaths are visible in the air.

   Clara remembers being nine years old, believing in Santa Claus, believing in happiness, believing in true love. She remembers running down the stairs in her parents’ house, opening Christmas gifts in front of their fireplace, eating chocolate and freshly baked gingerbread cookies. She remembers Christmas dinners that felt like they lasted forever and falling asleep in front of Christmas concerts on the television.

   But she isn’t nine years old, she’s nineteen, and she’s slowly falling apart.

   “Are you okay?” John asks, as if he can sense her sadness.

   Clara blinks away the tears that are burning in her eyes. “I’m fine, yeah.”

   He curls his hands around her wrists, stroking his thumbs over her veins. “Christmas does tend to make people who can’t spend it with their families miserable.”

   “I’m spending it with my loved ones, aren’t I?” she says, but she’s always been terrible at hiding the truth when she’s drunk.

   “You’re shivering,” John says, and she supposes he’s right, but she can’t actually feel the cold against her skin. “We should go inside.”

   Clara hums. “I want more eggnog.”

   He kisses her on the top of her head. “Clara, Clara, I think you’ve had enough for tonight.”

   “What were you like, when you were nineteen?” she asks him, leaning her head against his chest.

   “Confused,” he says, hesitating for a second before he continues. “You’d probably have hated me, back then.”

   “I could never hate you,” she mumbles. “Did you know you wanted to become an artist?”

   “I went to art school, so yeah, sort of.”

   “Sometimes I wish I’d taken my A _-_ levels,” Clara admits to him. “Gone to uni. I hated every minute of school, but I still can’t help but feel like I missed out on something.”

   “You’ve travelled the world,” he says. “You’ve recorded two albums. You’ve won a bloody Grammy. If you want to go back to school, it’ll always be there, but how many nineteen-year-olds can claim to have experienced what you have?”

   A smile tugs at the corners of Clara’s mouth, but there’s a sadness to it. “Look at you, being all old and wise.”

   “Come on,” he says, lifting her up and rising from the hot tub, “let’s go inside, now, before you freeze to death.”

   She laughs, placing her arms around his neck as he carries her through the garden, millions of stars glittering in the night sky above them, and she thinks about parallel universes and how she wouldn’t want to live in a world where she never met him.


End file.
